About

South Bay Eco Citizens is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) entity. Our mission is to inspire change in our community to stop the pollution engulfing the San Francisco South Bay region.

The South Bay Region covers Milpitas, North San Jose (Alviso), South Fremont, and Sunnyvale. The facilities that are polluting the region includes Newby Island Landfill and Recyclery, ZWED (Zero Waste Energy Development) anaerobic digester, and the Santa Clara Regional Waste Sewage Plant.

We have a grassroots movement seeking to eliminate the man made sources of odor. All of these odor producing facility is located in San Jose and the City of Milpitas has no authority over them.

Stop Expansion

Odor generating facilities in San Jose have been inflicting severe loss in quality of life and negative socio-economic impacts to communities and businesses downwind for decades, with over 100,000 daytime population in Milpitas and South Fremont. Past lawsuit settlements between City of San Jose, City of Milpitas, Browning Ferris, Intl Disposal Corp, Wastewater Treatment Plant, and McCarthy Ranch have all failed to contain the problem from lack of oversight and enforcement. These odor generating facilities continue to be permitted to expand their operations with the addition of the largest recycling center, anaerobic digester, approval of Newby Island and Zanker Landfill height/capacity expansion in recent years.

We seek actions to halt the environmental injustice on our community. We seek permanent odor abatement from the area major odor producers including a fixed closure date for the 80+ year old Newby Island facility (operated by Republic Services) and punitive damages for their deceptive/abusive practices.

Update: The expansion permit was approved by the San Jose Planning commission on Dec 2017. Our first target is the Newby Island Landfill expansion. We are seeking to deny the permit for expansion that will increase the capacity of the landfill and extend the operations of the landfill. The landfill is a major source of odor affecting the Southbay including Milpitas/North San Jose/Fremont. This slide deck is a good introduction to myths/facts about the expansion.